Jerks of the Week - Aug. 13, 2012

If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may know that my birthday party was last Friday night. I announced, "Birthday party at my house tonight! If you're reading this, you're invited!"

Some of the more interesting responses to this:

1. From Robert Cobb: Happy Birthday my man, keep up the great work on walterfootball.com, how old are you now?

I'm 30. I'm old. My back hurts. My knees are failing. I can't see out of my left eye. I'm fat. I'm slow. And I have a sudden urge to play bingo and attend 4 p.m. early-bird specials. Outside of that, I'm doing great.

2. From Matheus T: How long would take to go from Rio de Janeiro to Philadelphia?

I tried Google Maps, Mapquest, Yahoo Maps and Bing Maps. All gave me the same answer: "We can't find a driving route for the locations you entered. Check the locations you entered, and try again."

Sorry Matheus, but there is no possible way to get from Rio de Janeiro (wherever the hell that may be) to Philadelphia. Sucks you couldn't come to the party.

3. From Kyle M: Happy birthday! You paid for my daughters braces!

This made me happy because I always assumed that people who win money with my picks use their cash on hookers and coke. But this opens up new possibilities. If someone ever e-mails or Facebooks me saying, "You paid for my wife's boob job!" I'll know that I made a real, positive impact in this world.

4. From Abhishek P: happy birthday walt... I live in Canada so I can't be there... sorry :(

That's OK because I didn't serve any butterscotch pudding at the party. As we all know, Canadians can't have fun if there's no butterscotch pudding to dip your hands.

5. From Hannes W: Just looking for a flight from Austria to the USA. ;) Happy birthday, Walt!

It sucks Hannes didn't make it. I like having people from the Land Down Under at my parties.

As for the party itself, it was solid. I had fun, but I was annoyed that there were numerous no-shows - and it wasn't just random people; three of my best friends didn't come. Both of my oldest childhood friends couldn't make it. Two of my best high school buddies were absent. My college roommate? Nope. Even my girlfriend was MIA, though she had a legitimate excuse.

As for other people's excuses? Not so much. Here were some horrible reasons my guests provided:

1. "I thought it was tomorrow night."

Two of my friends said this to me. I'll forgive one of them, but the other, an angry Asian man, has been to enough of my parties to know that I always host them on Friday night.

This is the oldest trick in the book. In fact, Larry David did this on Season 6, Episode 1 of Curb Your Enthusiam - only the angry Asian man perfected it by contacting me that very night instead of showing up to my house on Saturday evening.

It's also worth noting that the angry Asian man offered to hang out with me on Saturday, but I told him the following day would be better for me and that I'd call him back. I never did.

2. "I'm sick."

No one will question this. You can't because then you sound like a dick. The only appropriate response is, "That sucks, I hope you feel better."

It is shady though, especially when two of the three people who said they were sick told me that they were coming the day of. Oh, and if they were sick, who cares? They still could have showed up. I mean, maybe that would have made them sicker, but that's irrelevant. The most important thing is that they missed my birthday party. They're extremely selfish and I will never forgive them.

3. "I ate bad fruit salad."

Josh, my best friend of 25 years, had this bizarre excuse. Who the hell eats fruit salad, let alone bad fruit salad?, I wondered when he texted me. I didn't answer him because he often comes up with lame reasons to get out of things, but then he sent me another text:

"I've been pooping all night. You can even ask this girl I'm dating Dawn if I'm lying or not."

Then, 15 minutes later:

"I'm going pooping again. Uch."

So, Josh is either full of s**t or full s**t. How would I know which one? Did he expect me to actually contact this enigmatic Dawn person? How would that conversation have gone?

Dawn: Hello?

Me: Hi, is this the Dawn who's dating Josh right now?

Dawn: Yes, why?

Me: Was Josh pooping all Friday night?

Dawn: What?

Me: Did Josh have diarrhea pouring out of his anus all Friday night because of some bad fruit salad that he ate?

Dawn: Who is this? Wait, I don't care. I'm calling the cops because you're asking me these horrifying questions. You'll be taken to jail where you'll be raped by fat men named Bubba.

Me: Nooooo!!!

I decided not to call Dawn.

4. "I'm going crabbing."

My friend Body Burner told me this. I'll give him credit for coming up with a unique excuse, but I'm not buying it. My party went on from 8 p.m. until about 4 a.m. According to my nifty Windows calculator, that's eight hours. If Body Burner really went crabbing at, let's say 9 p.m., then he would have been done at 11, perhaps 11:30. No way he was still doing it at midnight. I'm a huge fan of Red Lobster, but even I have never been there for three hours.

I've exposed Body Burner as a liar, so does that mean he's a Jerk of the Week for the third time? No, but only because I have bigger fish to fry.

What sort of fish? Well, the Olympics, of course. I hate the Olympics, as you may remember from my Jerks of the Week entry about the Winter Olympics that I posted 2-and-a-half years ago.

As a recap, the Olympics especially anger me because they cancel and/or postpone good TV shows. That's not as much of an issue in the summer, but TNT's Falling Skies was off the air for one week, which did not sit well with me. Something else that didn't is that the people at my party wanted to have the Olympics on TV instead of the Phillies game. In other words, they thought insignificant sports that occur once every four years is more important than a regular-season baseball game? How stupid is that?

Oh, and they definitely are insignificant "sports." For example, walking is in the Summer Olympics. Walking! Everyone walks. What's to stop anyone from walking in the Olympics? And then there's the trampoline. Trampolines are fun, but anyone can jump up and down on a trampoline. Well, almost anyone. Paraplegics can't do that. They can't walk either. This means that the Olympics discriminates against paraplegics. The people who run the Olympics are obviously racist against those who can't walk, and if you watch the Olympics, you are too.

The Olympics are boring anyway. Who wants to watch swimming? I swam competitively up until I was 22 years old, and I fall asleep if it's on the TV. The communists who run NBC apparently agree with me; the women's 800-meter freestyle was airing during my party, and I witnessed NBC cutting away to a commercial break during the middle of the race.

Can you imagine this happening during a football game? I can imagine Al Michaels going, "And Eli Manning drops back to pass. He's looking... he's got Victor Cruz deep. He fires the ball and... we'll be back after a word from our sponsors!"

Another thing I don't get about the Olympics is why people even care. Seriously, if you're an American, why do you care if you have the fastest swimmer in the world? Why is that significant? Does having the faster swimmers prove that America is better than other countries? If Nigeria captures a gold medal in trampoline, would it finally be able to feed many of its hungry citizens? If North Korea has the best gymnasts, does that excuse the people in their government for being giant a**holes?

Also, why can't people root for other countries instead of their own? If you're an American, why do you have to root for America? We're basically the New York Yankees of international sporting events. Why not root for an underdog like Tunisia or Madagascar? People here do it for football, basketball and baseball teams - which would explain why people used to root for the Clippers - so why can't an American-bored citizen go against the grain and declare, "I'm rooting against USA in the Olympics because I'm a life-long Tunisia fan?"

It's all really stupid. I say that if all the countries want to get together and have a competition, it should be about scientific stuff. They could battle each other to see who can create the best invention to benefit mankind. Perhaps these Olympics would lead to a cancer cure or risk-free fat reducers. If the Olympics allowed me to swim freely at my old gym without the threat of fat ladies eating me, I'd be all for it.

Unfortunately, no one listens to me, so that's never going to happen. Our best chance to improve the Olympics is to make all of the "sports" apply to everyday life. Here is how I would upgrade each "sport:"

Running: Sprinters like that Thunder Bolt guy are just competing against each other. I feel like we need to introduce a new element into the equation.

My proposal is to have lions, tigers and zombies chase the sprinters. Why? Because it'll prove that the country that has the fastest runners has the best chance of surviving in the likely event that all of the lions and tigers escape from the zoo.

Zombies are even more applicable. Think about it - if there's suddenly a zombie apocalypse, wouldn't you want to know where you'd be safest? Well, it wouldn't be where Bolt is from. You'd want to venture toward the country with the slowest runners. Thus, the first country to get devoured by zombies is where you want to go because you'll probably be able to outrun everyone and last the longest.

Swimming: The same thing applies to swimming. Why should Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte only compete against each other?

If I were in charge of the Olympics, I would dump sharks, sting rays and zombie dolphins into the pool. Phelps, Lochte and the other people would then have to swim away from them. Again, if sharks and sting rays escape from the zoo, you'll want to swim toward the slowest country.

And please don't be na?ve and dismiss a zombie dolphin apocalypse. I presented this theory to people at my party and they all laughed at me. When zombie dolphins take over the world, remember that I warned you all. I'm prepared for the zombie apocalypse, and you should be too.

Trampoline: Like I said, anyone but those poor paraplegics can jump on trampolines. I say it's high time to make it more of a challenge.

There's a simple way to improve trampoline jumping - have people on the side of the trampoline shoot poisonous darts at the contestants. The person who wins the gold medal will be the last one who isn't poisoned.

Now, you might be thinking, "Walt, you actually want people to die via poison in the Olympics?" Umm... no, I'm not barbaric. There can be doctors standing there with med kits waiting to cure those who are poisoned. I mean, maybe they won't be able to cure some of the athletes in time, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Diving: I was pretty angry about diving in my inebriated state late during the party. I drunkenly texted the following to Awesome Girl Who Loves Football:

"I think diving is such a bullsit sport i think anyone can do it so i can be an olympic athlete right now i think I'm going to dive off my deck. I feel like I could do the same dives tibet thougrf people em. I mean do. I can do the dives."

I'm sober now, but I stand by that statement. Anyone can dive and do twists in the air. That's no sort of challenge. A better way of doing it is having the divers soar through rings of fire and electricity. Oh, and the pool they're diving into should be filled with zombie dolphins so that the divers have to get out right away.

Walking: I'd have zombies walk after the walkers. This is too easy, so let's move on.

Archery: This is pretty straightforward. You know the zombies and zombie dolphins I discussed earlier? Well, give the archers some fire arrows to dispose of them. As Emmitt Smith would say, "You killin' two stone with one bird."

Soccer: There is no soccer in the Olympics, so let's just keep it that way.

Gymnastics: Eliminate male gymnastics, first of all. As for female gymnastics, I think it would be great if they made it into strip gymnastics or perhaps even lesbian orgy mud wrestling gymnastics (for the gymnasts who are 18 and over, of course). No doubt NBC's ratings would soar.

Shot-put: Now, this may cause some controversy. If you don't know what shot-put is, it's where some people throw a stone ball and then they measure it to see who heaved it the farthest.

Stone balls are boring. I think the shot-putters should have to launch bombs at the competitors from other countries.

I know, I know. Bombs could blow people up if they hit them. That's just a risk I'm willing to take so we can find out which people can fling bombs the farthest. Once we discover who those people are, America and other power nations can bid on them to join their military. The powerful nations can then use those bomb-throwers to destroy terrorism.

Medals: Everyone talks about gold, silver and bronze. I think fourth place should be the chocolate medal. Everyone loves chocolate.

Now, I know what you're thinking right now: "The only issue is that people will tank intentionally so they can get fourth place and eat the chocolate." See, that just proves you haven't been paying attention. People who lose will be eaten by zombies or torched by fire rings or poisoned by darts or blown up by bombs. Thus, the chocolate would serve as a sweet consolation prize to the person who was fortunate enough to win fourth place and still be alive.

I know that many people will find my ideas to be extreme. But aren't the best ideas extreme? Introducing zombies and other hazards into the Olympics may put the athletes at risk, but if all goes according to plan, we will be better prepared for a zombie apocalypse, all while destroying terrorism by finding the best bomb-throwers.

It should be clear by now that if all of the countries can't agree that my ideas are awesome and should be put into place immediately, then they will never be able to agree on anything.